Final Fantasy
by Iota Hunter
Summary: Only loosely based on the games, with no storyline shared. Kella is a warrior, but she's lost something. Someone. Can she make it back to him from the royal city after being left there, burnt? Or will she perish along the way...
1. Prologue

Prologue

"You can kiss my ass!"

With quick realisation, Kella covered her mouth in an attempt to pull the words she had uttered back into her sun-kissed lips, but failed. Her mentor's face instantly turned bright red as the veins in his neck began to bulge.

"How dare you."

He lunged at her with a broadsword made from iron, which he wielded at the hilt with two hands. She barely had time to react, and, upon seeing the size difference between the sword and her two small daggers, just managed to jump to the side in time.

Her weapons weren't even proper daggers. As she and her master were living in the poor district of Fayte, one of the most beautiful, and yet most diverse, cities in the world of Callamoore, they were both rather poor themselves. Her blades were simply that, sharpened pieces of metal with leather strapped around the bottoms in the guise of handles.

Kella twisted to the right as the sword, which was longer than her own body, plunged into a wicker basket behind her. She looked to the floor, following a thick lock of her thick blonde hair. This angered her greatly, and she lacked the skills to hide that.

Morgan revelled in being the only person in the small and cramped district they lived in able to keep his emotions hidden, and yet this made him smile. The redness in his face had faded slightly, and his brown eyes were no longer as diminished as they had been a moment ago.

Being an accomplished warrior, training for many decades of his life, Morgan had become stronger than even the average Royal Knight, and he never failed to prove that to her.

"You cut off my hair, Morgan!" Kella shouted, jumping at him with her two daggers held outwards in an attempt to strike, but was shoved away by the flat of his large blade, simply with a small twist of his arm.

He always impressed her.

"I guess I wouldn't know the difference, begin bald as I am," he said in his usual passive, calm voice. "You will learn respect one day, Kella. Nine years, you've been training with me in this wretched place, and yet you still cling to those daggers we made so long ago."

"I like them," she replied, sliding them into their small sheaths, crossing over each other on her lower back.

"I can make you new ones."

This was true. Morgan was one of the best blacksmiths she had seen, although she had not met many. He had created his own armour plates and the thick blade he wielded. He refused, however, to create even the smallest bracers for Kella until she had mastered not only the basics, but had mastered a whole range of stances and techniques across different weapons.

Since she was never parted from her beloved daggers, she hadn't given him the chance to improve her on anything else, apart from taking care of her hair, or in this case, trimming it against her will. He had shown her that although he was bald, a warrior could take advantage of their hair whether it was short of long.

Weeks had been spent improving her skill of throwing the large body of thick strands of hair into an opponents face before attacking them. It was a slightly dirty trick, but anything that could help Kella win in a bout made her happy.

"I don't want any yet," she retorted, sticking her tongue out.

She took a second to look at his smooth face and completely ripped body. There was no more than a family relationship between them, despite the fact they were not related in any way, and yet this was the man she loved.

At fifty-four, he had thirty-five winters more experience in life and love than her.

He had once told her of his wife and their child. The pictures he had shown her in Memory Spheres renewed his love for her every time he looked at them, and Kella could only agree. The woman was beautiful, and their child was the perfect combination of their features.

This was the man she loved. As her father. As her teacher. As her friend.

This was the man who was about to be taken away from her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Darkness gathered in the sky above the two fighters, yet try as Kella might, she could not look directly at it. It filled the sky until she was forced to look to the floor.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter 1**

"You can wake up now."

Opening her eyes, Kella looked at her surroundings, and didn't understand what she saw. There were plastic screens blocking her sight from any more than a metre away from her. As her grey eyes attempted to pierce the barrier, she saw a woman in a white robe behind the stiff bed she lay on.

This was what they called a white mage, a person skilled in using white magic.

"So they've finally sent a white mage to help in the gutters of Fayte then?" she asked, her attitude back despite whatever injury she may have received.

"You're not in the slums, darling," the woman told her, flicking her head so the white fringe that almost covered her eyes moved from under the thick material of the robe, "you're in Extrav, the Royal City."

Kella grunted in disgust. Morgan had taught her of Fayte's Royal Family, and she agreed with his disapproval. If they fancied a hearty banquet and the larder was bare, taxes would go up, mainly in the poorer districts.

This way, the poor could never better themselves, and yet the rich refused to ever lessen themselves.

"Why am I here?"

"You were dropped in front of the hospital gates a few nights ago," the mage said, surveying Kella's oddly confused expression. "We assumed you'd know what had happened to you."

Kella tried to remember, tried to think of what the last thing she could remember. She only remembered cursing at Morgan, and nothing after that.

"I have no idea!" she bellowed, shocked at her minds refusal to show her any form of a flashback. She looked around the bed, and only now noticed she was wearing a long white bed-dress. "Where are my clothes?"

"You were found on the floor outside the gates in charred clothes," the woman told her, adjusting the yellow hemming around her hood, "and any clothing that was left on you had burned off by the time we had arrived in the healing room."

"And my daggers?"

"There were no weapons with you."

There was silence for a while, until finally, after minutes of fidgeting, the white-clad woman reached for Kella's head.

"What are you doing?" she asked, recoiling on instinct.

"I need to check under the bandages."

There was no discomfort, but Kella suddenly became aware of tightness on top of her head. She allowed the mage to remove the woven bandages on her head and raised her hands.

"We've obviously healed it without scars," the mage informed her, lowering herself onto the hard mattress Kella lay on, "but your hair was burned away."

"I don't understand," Kella said, lying back down, her face blushing and her head racing. She had lost all memory of the last three and a half days, and had also lost her clothes, her hair, and her precious daggers. Those last remnants of Morgan until she could have found him.

"Was there a man with me?"

"I don't understand," the white mage said, standing up once more and gazing at her with her near-white eyes.

"The last thing I remember was being with my tutor, Morgan," she told the woman, lifting up onto her elbow, "and surely it would have been him that dropped me off here, of any person."

"Young lady, we don't even know your name." The nurse looked down at her, and for a split second, Kella thought it looked like disdain. "You arrived her alone, practically in the nude and burned beyond recognition. We've done the best we can with your body, but your memory is your own. We cannot tap into there."

"Who was the man who told me to wake up earlier, then?"

"Nobody told you to wake up," the mage told her, getting slightly agitated, "but I did attempt to wake you with my magic. It's not been working since you got here, but I had to attempt it again. I don't like to lose people."

"Well I've lost someone, and yet I know where to find him."

Kella looked around for anything she could use as a weapon if she had to. Morgan always taught her to be resourceful, as she may not always have her favoured tool of battle with her. She saw nothing but flowers, flat pillows and the mage. The injured warrior began to form a plan.

"Would you mind if I tested out my legs?"

"I suppose that would be fine," the mage agreed, tightening the thick white rope around her waist, holding the thick material of the robe together.

It took a few seconds for Kella to get her balance back, but as soon as she had, she pushed the white mage's hands away and walked forward alone.

"My name is Lea, by the way," the woman said, not showing any sign of happiness on her face, despite the tone of her voice. "Will I know yours finally after three days of guessing?"

"You guessed what my name could be?"

"We've just been calling you Char, since you were so burnt."

Kella chuckled aloud, and inside her heart was beating dramatically. Not only was it getting more and more difficult to keep walking alone, but also her plan was failing as she saw the rest of the building and began to think more.

It would be increasingly harder to escape after she left the hospital and into the Royal City.

As she felt her plan of using Lea as both bait and a weapon collapse around her, she heard a sound as if the building were also collapsing around her. And then she saw the doors.

She could feel the cool breeze from outside and her body was begging to leave, even in the flowing nightdress she wore. Then she stopped dead as three blurs of colour washed past her eyes and to her left, blocking her from the doors.

She looked the three women up and down, and almost laughed. The tallest of the three was the tallest by far, and almost painfully thin. Her cheekbones stuck out past her eyes and if not for the scarlet armour covering her, Kella swore she would have been able to see both her ribs and spine through her pale skin.

The second in the line was shorter than Kella and squat. Rolls of fat seemed to squelch through the smallest of gaps in her navy armour plates, and she looked as if she had three faces, each with a bigger chin.

As Kella looked at the third, she noticed she had to look down drastically to notice the girl in the mustard armour that hardly covered the younger girl's skin, which was almost blue. They each had what seemed to be insect's antennae attached to the top of their helmets.

"Magus Sisters attack!" they cried out in unison.

"Razzia!" the tallest and thinnest screamed, her shrill voice sounding elegant and regal.

"Passado!" cried the smallest, jumping in the air as she did, causing her small amounts of armour to clank on each other.

"Camisade!" the fat one roared, her whole body swinging with the movement of her head.

All three rushed at once, bearing their individual weapons. The tallest wielded a huge scythe, the blade made of a black metal Kella didn't recognise. The fattest held two long daggers, made from clean silver, the type Kella had only seen on the suits of armour when the Royal Knights travelled through the slums out of necessity. Seeing them made her envious.

The youngest of the three ran with a long pole made of a strong-looking iron, with thicker segments at either end for attacking.

"Protect!" Lea screamed, fear showing on her face. Kella looked away from her face and saw all three women's weapons had struck a transparent green barrier constructed with hexagon-shaped energy forms.

Lea held onto Kella's arm and the younger girl could feel her shaking under the pressure. All three women attacking them were smirking in their own different, yet identical evil way. She heard a gasp leave the white mage's mouth and saw her struggling with the amount of power these women were putting into their attacks.

The weapons began to glow.

"Delta…!" they chanted loudly, pushing harder and lower. The ground crumbled were the protective dome met it, and Kella felt Lea kneeling lower and lower, while her raised arm began to bend, with the once fierce green energy glow on her fingertips was now a pale olive tint.

"You need to run, Char!" she cried, tears of exhaustion streaming down the once pale woman's bright pink face.

"…Attack!"

A plate at the side of she shield just big enough for Kella to fit through moved aside. Lea let go of her arm and pushed her towards it.

"Go."

Kella obeyed the woman and leapt through the whole, sprinting towards the doors with the energy her adrenaline rush had given her. She felt intense pressure behind her and a pull on her body, but she made it out of the door. There was a loud and powerful explosion, and even in the night sky outside, Kella could see the smoke billowing from the building.

With tears running down her cheeks, she thanked the gods for what she assumed was Lea's final moments in protecting her life.

She was much further away when she saw the three women leave the building and meet another figure in a yellow robe. Even with the keen eyesight she and Morgan shared, Kella couldn't see the person's face, or even if they were male or female. After a few words shared between the tallest woman and the robed figure, the three women evaporated into bright blue orbs.

"Char!" she heard screamed in an echo along the mountainous valley she now climbed for a better view. They had been talking about her.

Looking back, she saw the figure in the yellow robe had also disappeared, and all that was left was the destruction of the hospital and its thick white-painted cement walls. Now looking out of place in the buildings surrounding it that had not been destroyed, it was left to rot in the night.

She felt bad for Lea, and anyone else who had been in the building at the time. The three women had been so powerful, and had obviously intended on killing everyone in that building for whatever purpose. They must now be thinking of pursuing Kella to finish the job.

Her journey back to her home in the city's slum was going to be a harder one than she had originally thought as she had lain in her hospital bed.

"Look's like I'm going to have to rough it a little."

She turned to the rising sun and followed the clearest trail along the stone valley towards the poorest part of the city, to find the man in her heart.


End file.
